Has anybody had any problems with John Deere Riding mowers? (acre, tractor)

[wabanaki]

is John Deere handling the warranty or MTD, i think John Deere will get a lot of call for this and major expense to fix MTD lawn tractors.

Originally Posted by John1960

My local John Deere dealer has told me the LA 115 is made MTD and not John Deere.

John

[M3 Mitch]

MTD has certainly ruined the Troy-Bilt name for me, the new T-Bs are nothing like the old ones. Not near as good.

[texdav]

Probaly like the honda mopwers that HD sells they are much different than once sold at thier dealers. The harmony lin eis made for that market with alot more bushings etc.

[skinem]

Originally Posted by wabanaki

is John Deere handling the warranty or MTD, i think John Deere will get a lot of call for this and major expense to fix MTD lawn tractors.

JD does--or they did my L130 when it caught fire due to faulty wiring...or when the transmission went out...twice, or when one of the spindle bearings siezed...but not when the Kohler engine threw a rod. But, in all fairness, that did happen roughly 1-2 months after the warranty expired...

[rrtechno]

My LA, purchased at Lowe's has the sticker for the local JD dealer to contact for warranty work. Haven't needed any yet so I can't say how the warranty works.

[marmac]

Originally Posted by marmac

My son ( retired Navy) works at a " big box store" part time and attends college.

He was a lawn dept manager before going part time and entering college.

He stated they soild 4 different brands of lawn mowers/lawn tractors including John Deere.

On the John Deere ones, they would do the final assembly and when a group were ready a representative from a nearby John Deere dealership would come and inspect them before they were available for sale.

After his inspection, he would put the John Deere dealer's sticker on them and customers were told that was their place of service/warranty work.

This was at Home Depot.
Sounds similar to Lowe's

[SD4020]

Originally Posted by skinem

There's no doubt the dealers sell them both. I think the main point that's being made is that the ones sold in the big box stores (made particularly FOR sale in those stores) is cheaper monetarily and quality-wise from the other JD models. As such, they are often called "not real" JDs.

Someone else can probably tell whether this is true or not, but I've understood that the LA series is not actually made by JD, but made for them by another manufacturer.

That is the point I was trying to make in a round about way. I still would chose the X300 on up.

[John1960]

I have decided not to buy a John Deere because my local dealer has told me we don't take back riding mowers if you don't want it after 5 days. He said they would have to make a deal on returns. Lowes have told me I got 30 days to return it.

Thanks, John

[prunella]

Hi there. My advice is DON'T buy a J Deere mower. We bought a new one in 2006. We had so much trouble with it that we took them to the small claims court (UK)and eventually managed to get most of our money back.
It was a very poor design. It has no shear pin so if you hit a tiny stone, the blades fall off. Also it has no belt to adjust so when the blades work loose they get out of synchronisation and clank together.
It had loads more problems in just 25 hrs of use. Hope this is of some use to someone.

[Tim1922]

Ask the guys on Yesterdays Tractors. They spend their lives
working on mowers, tractors, etc and are mostly farmers or
country people who know equipment well.

Tim